Site Updates Vol. 4

The Barberry Garden site is under slow but active development. You may have noticed substantial changes to our site over the past two months. Here's an overview of the latest updates.

Wine Table Enhancements

The wine table, listing all wines in the database, now includes enhanced sorting and filtering options:

• Free Text Search: Search by country, region, producer, wine name, vintage, and grapes. Accent marks are normalized for ease of use.
• Dedicated Dropdown Filters: Separate filters for country and grape variety are available and can be used in conjunction with the text search.
• Column Customization: Users can choose which columns to display or hide.

Feedback on the current table is welcome, although further improvements are not immediately planned.

Event Reports Revamp

Event reports have received a significant overhaul, particularly in how wines are presented and summarized.

New Wine Representation

• Consistent Aesthetics: Wine representation now mirrors their dedicated page, maintaining site-wide consistency.
• Medal Indicators: Medals indicate the wine's ranking in tasting events. Absence of a medal signifies non-participation in ratings.

Improved Event Summary

The event summary table is here for you to quickly check the perception of the wines we tasted during the evening.

During the rehaul this site went though two months ago, I haven't touched these tables and left them as is. But let's be honest, they had their share of drawbacks:

• In many cases it wasn't clear what the heck is Wine #11 (you had to scroll to check with the wine list).
• The information about the meaning of each column was present at the bottom, but it was taking up precious space and was forcing you to read the table with the need to also perceive information around it (above - for the list of wines and below - for the explanations).
• Aesthetically it wasn't aligned with the site.

The event summary has undergo the following changes.

• Enhanced Clarity and Accessibility: The first column now includes wine's image, name, and producer, with links to their respective pages.
• New 'Place' Column: This column shows the wine's ranking based on average scores, eliminating the need for manual mental sorting.
• Simplified Layout: Explanations are available via hover-over tooltips, reducing clutter and enhancing readability.

Improved Personal Scores

At the bottom of almost every event report, there is a table with all the personal scores. This is a table displaying the scores of each participant. It also had its share of problems.

• Since the wine list was far away (at the beginning of the article), it was really hard for people to check their ratings.
• Aesthetically it wasn't aligned with the site.

Since the summary table got some love, the personal scores also deserved it. The only major difference - I transposed (i.e. rotated the table) to make it easier to see the wine (placing wines horizontally doesn't look good). This decision requires some time to adapt, but the sticky wine column makes it easy to check your scores.

Wine page

Bottle Size Information

Each review now specifies the bottle size, ranging from standard 750ml to unique sizes like 500ml and 1,000ml.

What's still missing

• Related wines on the wine page. It will come shortly™.
• Various JSON files with data about wine, grapes, regions, etc. I still have no ETA, but I will expose them again. I also know that I'll need to expose much more information.

Looking Ahead

While I refrain from making definitive promises, the focus is currently on the year-end report and exploring new methodologies for calculating average scores. An update on this will follow.

That being said, thank you for reading this small update. I hope you like the improvements. Let me know if you have complaints, ideas and whatnot. Love you!